“Elements, man,” I said in my review of the original, in praise of how far topic and tone can carry a film.

National Treasure 2 seems to exist purely to call that conjecture into question. It’s certainly got it all—adventure, treasure, espionage, secrets hiding in plain sight. But this sequel finds that there’s a ceiling. Book of Secrets, like many a sequel, does the same thing (and, boy, does it do the same thing) but more, bigger, and faster. Unfortunately, the original was teetering on the edge between silly fun and just plain silly. You wouldn’t have to turn the knob very far to turn a good thing into a bad, and that knob was turned from 11 to whatever comes after 11.

You can tell from the writing that the filmmakers felt a pressure to do exactly this. The film process started with a few key set pieces and situations in mind (kidnap the president, gold city) and the script was tailored to incorporate those. Fine, a similar thing was likely done with the first. But the first was more straightforward, both to create and to experience as the audience: Ben has a family legacy that he wants to unravel. It requires he do some outlandish things which reveal some outlandish truths about our country’s history. It’s personal.

Now, the only way they can think to do this film is to undo the first film. Ben and Abigail are separated so we can get back the will they/won’t they tension. Riley is back to being a broke loser. The once-ridiculed Gates family is ridiculed once again. With the rinse done, they are free to repeat.

But virtually none of what they give us is as good as what came before. Tonally, there’s a frenetic mad-dash around Europe for large portions of the film that is more reminiscent of a Ron Howard Robert Langdon film than the first National Treasure. Furthermore, beyond some lip service paid in film by some ancillary characters, little of Gates’s love of history is communicated. His focus is far more goal-oriented. In the previous film, there’s an aura cast upon historical junk so that we see it from the point of view of these history geeks. Moments of this nature (such as when Ben’s mother yells, “Do you know the significance of this?”) don’t have near the same impact. It may be that you thought that was just a patriotic wank in the first place, but at least it was an earnest patriotic wank. This is just a cynical repeat. And if they’re going to repeat, of course, they need to incorporate the FBI agents into the film once again—but it’s hardly the same when they’re aligned with Gates rather than against him.

Riley’s used even more fervently as comic relief, but in far more tonally inappropriate ways. His comedy usually serves to disrupt rather than to enhance. I find the inclusion of Gates’s parents and their relationship to be far more effective at this than Riley. Their banter is also shockingly similar to the direction that the series that National Treasure originally mimed, Indiana Jones, would go in its installments subsequent to this film. Patrick and Emily Gates are very similar to Indiana and Marion in their later years.